Watson's Whizzers
'' |image= |caption=Members of Watson's Whizzers Air Facts Journal entry |nickname(s)= |type=Evaulation unit |leader=Colonel Harold E. Watson |equipment= |size= |establishment=22 April 1945 |fragmented= |reformed= |destruction=Presumably Post War |notable conflicts=World War 2 |affiliation=USAAF }} This entry is about the unit. For links to the captured aircraft associated with this unit, please see the category page. Watson's Whizzers was one of the two teams which participated in Operation LUSTY (LUftwaffe Secret TechnologY), the United States Army Air Forces effort to capture and evaluate German aeronautical technology during and after World War II. Known officially as Team One, under the leadership of Colonel Harold E. Watson, a former Wright Field test pilot, the Whizzers collected enemy aircraft and weapons for further examination in the United States. =History= In 1944 intelligence experts at Wright Field had developed lists of advanced aviation equipment they wanted to examine. Watson and his crew, composed of pilots, engineers and maintenance men, used these "Black Lists" to collect aircraft. Watson organized his Whizzers into two sections. One collected jet aircraft and the other procured piston-engine aircraft and nonflyable jet and rocket equipment. After the war, the Whizzers added Luftwaffe test pilots to the team. One was Hauptman Heinz Braur. On 8 May 1945, Braur flew 70 women, children and wounded troops to Munich-Riem airport. After he landed, Braur was approached by one of Watson's men who gave him the choice of either going to a prison camp or flying with the Whizzers. Braur thought flying preferable. Three Messerschmitt employees also joined the Whizzers: Karl Baur, the Chief Test Pilot of Experimental Aircraft, test pilot Ludwig Hoffman, and engineering superintendent Gerhard Coulis. Test pilot Herman Kersting joined later. When the Whizzers located nine Messerschmitt Me 262 jet aircraft at Lechfeld airfield near Augsburg, these German test pilots had the expertise to fly them. It is also interesting to note that it has been alleged and partially substantiated by declassified documents that the Whizzers recruited captured Luftwaffe personnel and pilots held at Fort Bliss, Texas, to go into what would become the British, French and Soviet controlled areas after V-E Day, to fly out, hide, or otherwise remove all "black listed" planes, secret weapons equipment and supporting documents to the U.S controlled areas some 4 months before Germany's surrender. Watson's men traveled across Europe to find the aircraft on the "Black Lists."Samuel, Wolfgang W. E. Watson's Whizzers: Operation Lusty and the Race for Nazi Aviation Technology. Atglen, Pa: Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 2010. Once found, they had to be shipped to the United States. Fortunately, the British loaned them the originally American-built Bogue-class escort carrier HMS Reaper (D82), first commissioned for the US Navy as the USS Winjah. The most viable harbor for docking the carrier and loading the aircraft was at Cherbourg, France. The Whizzers flew the Me 262s and other aircraft including an Arado Ar 234 from Lechfeld to St. Dizier to Melun and then to Cherbourg, on Querqueville Airfield, also known as ALG A-23C Querqueville. All the aircraft were cocooned against the salt air and weather, loaded onto the carrier and brought to the United States where they were offloaded at Newark Army Air Field and then studied at their respective flight test centers by the air intelligence groups of both the USAAF—whose flight test center was then at Wilbur Wright Field—and the U.S. Navy, which had its facility at the Patuxent Naval Air Test Center. One of the Messerschmitt Me 262 jets was named "Marge" by the mechanics; the pilots later renamed it "Lady Jess IV."Scott, Phil.1997. "Watson's Whizzers." Air & Space Magazine (Smithsonian). October/November 1997. Page 69. Operation Lusty resulted in the survival of the sole existing examples of the Arado Ar 234 jet reconnaissance/bomber (''WkNr.'' 140 312), the Dornier Do 335 twin-engined heavy fighter (''WkNr.'' 240 102), and the only readily restorable example in the United States of the German Heinkel He 219 night fighter (''WkNr.'' 290 202), all of which are in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and currently restored and on display at the Dulles International Airport-located NASM museum facility, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the new home of the NASM's restoration workshops. =See also= * The Fedden Mission of the United Kingdom, tasked with similar fact-finding concerning the aircraft and technology of the defeated Luftwaffe * Operation Big * Freeman Army Airfield, the destination for many of the Operation Lusty-recovered captured Luftwaffe aircraft *Operation Paperclip, the search for German scientists * The Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt in Völkenrode, a top secret German aviation test facility *Manhattan Project *Eric "Winkle" Brown, the Royal Navy aviation officer who helped Watson retain a number of aircraft *Siegfried Knemeyer, a World War II German aviation technology expert who worked for the USAF after the war *No. 1426 Flight RAF =References= =Bibliography= * Daso, Dik Alan. 2002. "Focus: The Shaft of the Spear - Operation LUSTY: The US Army Air Forces' Exploitation of the Luftwaffe's Secret Aeronautical Technology, 1944-45". Airpower Journal. 16, no. 1: 28. * Daso, D. A. 2002. "Operation LUSTY: The US Army Air Forces' Exploitation of the Luftwaffe's Secret Aeronautical Technology, 1944-45". AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL. 16: 28-40. * Heaton, Colin D. The ME 262 Stormbird: From the Pilots Who Flew, Fought, and Survived It. Minneapolis: MBI Pub. Co, 2012. * Hunt, M. La rafle des savants allemands ou l'opération "Lusty". Imprimeries Réunies S.A., 1953. . * Samuel, Wolfgang W. E. American Raiders The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004. . * Young, R. L. 2005. "Operation Lusty Harold Watson's "Whizzers" Went Hunting for German Jets-and Came Back with Several Jewels". AIR FORCE MAGAZINE. 88: 62-67. =External links= * National Museum of the USAF Operation Lusty (Luftwaffe Secret Technology) Factsheet page * Facebook's video of postwar US airshow featuring captured German WW II aircraft, some acquired through Lusty Category:Units Category:World War 2